Australian news, and some related international items

‘This is an omen’: Queensland firefighters battle worst start to season on record More than 50 bushfires are burning with the most dangerous in the Gold Coast hinterland destroying the Binna Burra Lodge,Guardian, Australian Associated Press 8 Sept 19,Queensland is in uncharted territory as firefighting crews battle to get the upper hand in the worst start to the fire season on record.

More than 50 fires were burning across Queensland on Sunday afternoon, the most dangerous in the Gold Coast hinterland where it had destroyed homes and the heritage-listed Binna Burra Lodge.

One of the oldest nature-based resorts in Australia, which dates back to the 1930s, now lies in ruins………

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services’ predictive services inspector, Andrew Sturgess, said the state had never before seen such serious bushfire conditions, so early in spring.

“So this is an omen, if you will, a warning of the fire season that we are likely to see in south-eastern parts of the state where most of the population is,” he said.

The acting premier, Jackie Trad, said climate change meant the state was facing a new era of fire risk.

“There is no doubt that with an increasing temperature with climate change, then what the scientists tell us is that events such as these will be more frequent and they will be much more ferocious,” she told reporters.

Fire authorities have warned the danger posed by the Binna Burra fire will not be over for days, with strong winds expected to persist until Tuesday.

“We’re still very much in defensive mode,” Queensland Fire and Emergency Services’ assistant commissioner, Kevin Walsh, said on Sunday………

Dams and water tanks on rural properties are empty. Stanthorpe itself is subject to emergency water restrictions of 100 litres per person per day, with the supply not expected to last until the end of the year. After that the council will have to truck water in.

Ms Ley rejected their application on the grounds that the potential jobs generated from the mine were more important than cultural preservation.

She acknowledged the project could cause “mental health impacts … a sense of dislocation, displacement and dispossession,” among Indigenous people, but determined the social and economic value of the project took priority.

On behalf of the Gomeroi people, traditional owner Dolly Talbott has launched legal action against Ms Ley, with the case due before court for the first time on Wednesday.

She is being represented by the NSW Environmental Defender’s Office (EDO) which will argue that the minister’s decision was “unlawful” and contravenes the constitutional basis of the heritage protection act.

“If we don’t try to save these sites, then we are not fulfilling our obligations to our elders and our ancestors … and our children and grandchildren,” Ms Talbott said.

“[The national Indigenous heritage laws] are supposed to be there for the protection of Aboriginal culture and it doesn’t seem to be working.”……

Benefits of mine outweigh destruction of heritage: Minister

When deciding on the intervention request, Ms Ley acknowledged the mine would result in the “likely destruction of parts of their Indigenous cultural heritage”.

“I considered that the expected social and economic benefits of the Shenhua Watermark Coal Mine outweighed the impacts on the applicants [Gomeroi people]” she said in the rejection document seen by the ABC…….

The Minister has the final say on which applications receive protection status, under the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act. …….

Drought-stricken NSW braces for an early bushfire season with not enough water to take them on ABC New England By Jennifer Ingall 2 Aug 19, Firefighters in parched New South Wales face the unenviable predicament of preparing for the impending fire season in a state where 98 per cent is in drought or short on water.

Key points:

Firefighters brace for a hot summer with depleted water resources

BOM’s August to October climate outlook suggests a drier than average three months for large parts of Australia

RFS assures farmers it will replace water used to fight fires

“When you’ve got a drought like that, particularly in bush areas, the fuel is so dry it doesn’t take a lot to get it to burn and burn hot,” acting Rural Fire Service (RFS) deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said.

August was traditionally a cool but windy month, but add to that the dry fuel load and it could be a recipe for disaster.

“So you’ve got the dry fuel and the strong winds — if you add a high temperature, and if we don’t get an easing of the drought through rainfall, then that’s quite concerning going into summer proper,” he said.

Resources already depleted

In the state’s north, the community of Tenterfield does not have enough water to supply the townsfolk, let alone an allocation of the precious resource to fight fires.

Is nuclear power an energy solution that could come to the South Coast? Bega District News , Albert McKnight ,23 July19,

Nuclear power has again become part of the national conversation and South East NSW is still being touted as a potential location to install a plant.

Earlier this year Nuclear for Climate Australia said NSW could host 10 nuclear power plants and reiterated how the South Coast was a place of interest as a construction site.

Under its proposal it states the South Coast has potential if included with other power plants that could be built at East Gippsland, the Snowy Mountains or Jervis Bay.

While it states the coast has many sites with “good access to once through sea water cooling” – running a large amount of water through a power plant’s condensers then discharging it into a waterway with only a small amount of evaporation – an extensive grid upgrade would be required for a 2.2GW plant. ……

While federal and state laws do not allow the development of a nuclear power industry, several MPs want this changed according the Sydney Morning Herald, and at a recent conference the NSW Nationals passed a motion stating the party’s support for nuclear energy in Australia.

Deputy Premier and Member for Monaro John Barilaro has been vocal about the need for a conversation around the technology for years, last month saying it was “guaranteed baseload energy with zero emissions, no fossil fuels and probably the cheapest cost to the average Australian household”.

He said last year he attended a global seminar in the US on the next generation of nuclear energy systems called small modular reactors (SMRs), which are are smaller in size than conventional reactors and can be placed in remote areas without the need to feed directly to the grid.

“Given their size and efficiency, their waste is minimal (new advancements in technology continues to address the waste issue) and compared to reactors of bygone eras, they are becoming very affordable,” he said.

But Electrical Trades Union national secretary Allen Hicks said there were significant safety risks associated with nuclear power and the cost to construct, maintain and dispose of nuclear waste far outweighed any perceived benefits.

“If Barilaro was being honest, he would tell people that nuclear is not a viable option without massive taxpayer subsidies which would see Australians’ good money thrown after bad,” he said.

By Michelle Brown A proposal to end a decades-long stoush over radioactive contamination of waterfront properties on Sydney’s north shore has been rejected by residents and local council.

Key points:

The area on Sydney’s north shore was the former site of the Radium Hill refinery, which closed in 1915

Residents have fought for decades to have the Government remove the contaminated soil

A plan to keep the waste in “cells” on site has been rejected and labelled a “temporary” fix

Several properties on Nelson Parade at Hunters Hill have been built on land contaminated by the former Radium Hill uranium processing plant in the 1900s.

Residents have spent decades urging the government to remove the affected soil, which the NSW Environment Protection Authority found was contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons, coal tar pitch, arsenic and lead.

The Council has now voted against a recommendation by its own consultants to “encapsulate” the low-level radioactive material in cement “cells” and store it onsite.

Philippa Clark from the Nelson Parade Action Group said residents felt the plan would make their lives worse.

She said most Hunters Hill residents knew nothing of the latest plan by Property NSW as few residents were formally notified and it was on exhibition over the school holidays.

The existence of the radioactive material, in the soil for over a century, was discovered 53 years ago and remains unmanaged.

The Council and residents want the soil removed altogether but an earlier proposal to send it to a waste facility at Kemp’s Creek in Sydney’s West was abandoned after a backlash from the local community.

There is no other waste facility in the state licenced to handle the material and a national radioactive waste management facility is yet to be established by the Federal Government.

Ms Clarke told Monday night’s council meeting that if the radioactive material was stored onsite at Hunters Hill, there was no guarantee it would be moved later when suitable off-site storage becomes available.

Former Hunters Hill mayor Richard Quinn also urged the Council to reject the proposal.

“Whilst we might wish to see progress at last and endorse this [proposal], the onsite encapsulation component of this report I believe cannot be accepted,” he said.

“It’s contrary to the best practice in sustainable remediation, and it’s not unreasonable for this community to expect anything less than best practice.”

Resident John Akin thought the Council had no choice but to accept the proposal, saying those pushing for outright rejection “overlook the health risk from the waste being left in its current uncontrolled state”.

But Mayor Mark Bennett said Property NSW told the Council during a meeting that the majority of Hunters Hill ratepayers were against the encapsulation option.

“It will be interesting to see what the Government decides to do as a result of this … it’s a decision of the Government at the end of the day.

“My opinion is we should not vote for encapsulation because I think it could be a permanent solution without any guarantees that it’s an interim solution — I can’t support it.”

THE NSW Nationals have formally made supporting nuclear power a part of its policy platform, following a grassroots push from within the party.

At the recent annual conference in Inverell, a motion to “support the use of nuclear power in Australia” was put forward by both the Orange and Narrabri Nationals branches, and passed unanimously.

Narrabri chair David Scilley said the motion was born out of frustration with the nation’s energy debate.

“If they’re not going to let us have a new coal-fire power station, we have to look at nuclear power,” Mr Scilley said. “Renewables work when the winds blows and the sun shines, but they’ve got no back up. We need to cover base-load power.”

Mr Scilley said it was up to the regions to lead the controversial debate.

“People out in the country are more practical – people in the city don’t realise where their food comes from or what it takes to produce it,” he said “The government needs a push in the right direction. The biggest problem is minority groups get too much of a say.” Mr Scilley believes the majority of Australians would support nuclear power “if it meant a lot cheaper power”.

New England Nationals chair Russell Webb was singing off the same hymn sheet…..

“I think if we take emotions out of it and face the topic realistically, we can see that this nation has some fantastic resources, ones that can supply either fuel for coal-fire power stations or nuclear power.” Mr Webb said it was “foolish” for Australia to think of an energy future without a secure base-load supply. Nuclear power stations, which are used across the world, are one great solution for that,” he said.

NSW Nationals leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro recently said Tamworth or Armidale could be the site of a new nuclear power station. Mr Barilaro said modern nuclear power technology means small scale plants could be established in parts of regional Australia. “If you want to get away from coal, well nuclear energy, there’s a real chance for it because of the new technology, the new small modular reactors that are now on the horizon,” Mr Barilaro said.

Production at Australia’s only nuclear medicine facility halted after ‘safety incident’ Production has ceased and an urgent investigation has been launched after two employees at a newly opened Australian nuclear medicine facility at Lucas Heights were exposed to an unsafe dose of radiation late last week.Just two weeks after it was granted a licence to enter into full domestic production, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (Ansto) has confirmed production at its new $168m nuclear medicine facility has been halted after “a safety incident” on Friday morning.

Ansto said three of its workers were “attended to by radiation protection personnel” after the incident, in which contamination was detected on the outside of a container holding 42 millilitres of the radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99).

Two of those workers received a radiation dose above the legal limit roughly equivalent to a conventional cancer radiation therapy treatment, an Ansto spokesman said……

Located at the Lucas Heights nuclear facility in Sydney’s south, the $168m nuclear medicine facility was announced by the federal government in 2012 with the goal of tripling Australian production of Mo-99, the parent isotope of Technetium-99m. …..

It is the second contamination scare at the Lucas Heights facility in only a few months.

Nationals MPs urge rethink on nuclear, THE AUSTRALIAN GRAHAM LLOYD, ENVIRONMENT EDITOR, 24 JUNE 19, Scott Morrison is being asked to support a full investigation of nuclear energy in Australia.

Queensland Coalition MPs Keith Pitt and James McGrath have drafted a letter to the Prime Minister together with proposed terms of reference for an inquiry, which will be delivered this week.

The letter will call for a review of advances in nuclear energy including small nuclear reactors and thorium technology, both of which could produce less radioactive waste than existing nuclear plants.

Commercial investigation of nuclear energy will require that a ban on considering the technology be removed from the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Mr Pitt said that the nuclear issue was “a debate we are ready to have”.

“In our view the technology has moved on and small modular reactors and thorium need to be investigated,” Mr Pitt said.

…….. Critics of nuclear energy claim it would be unable to compete economically with renewable energy and storage.

……. The Morrison government has been reluctant to consider changes to the EPBC Act on nuclear power. But the act in its entirety is up for statutory review this year.

……. The Nationals MPs expect a public review to take from 18 months to two years.

The call for a national inquiry coincides with a review into the potential of nuclear power in NSW, to include former federal Labor Party leader and newly elected One Nation MP Mark Latham.

Mr Latham has introduced a bill in the upper house of the NSW parliament to repeal the uranium mining and nuclear ban in the state.

A parliamentary inquiry will be held by the eight-member, multi-party Standing Committee on State Development of the upper house. Mr Latham will be a member of the committee.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said Australia’s largest city needed to step up and show global leadership, especially given the failure of “successive federal governments (which) have shamefully presided over a climate disaster”.

Liberal Sydney Councillor, Craig Chung, one of two Liberal councillors who plan to oppose the motion, told The Australian while he supported action on climate change, he strongly objected to Ms Moore’s “hysterical, catastrophising” message.

“Language like climate emergency, climate catastrophe and extinction rebellion do nothing to further reasoned and rational debate,” Mr Chung said.

“If we learned one thing from the May 18 (federal) election, polarised fear mongering is not what the community want. The electorate expects us to take action, debate clearly and rationally about solutions, stop weaponising language and to deliver measurable and tangible outcomes for all Australians.”

Mr Chung said he would be proposing an amended version of the lord mayoral motion, stripped of all its “hysterical elements”.

Ms Moore said the nation was now experiencing such extreme weather “91 of the hottest places on Earth were in Australia”.

She said heatwaves across the country were now five times more likely, and “even more alarming — they start earlier, become hotter and last longer”.

“Seventy per cent of the world’s emissions are generated from cities, so the action city governments take is absolutely critical,” Ms Moore said.

Ms Moore has asked Council to call on the Federal Government to respond urgently to the emergency, by reintroducing a price on carbon to meet the Paris Agreement emissions reduction targets, and establishing a Just Transition Authority to ensure Australians employed in fossil fuel industries find appropriate alternate employment.

“Successive federal governments have shamefully presided over a climate disaster, and now we are at a critical juncture — we face a climate emergency,” she said.

“Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased for four consecutive years. It is clear that the current Federal Government’s policies are simply not working and I call on council to declare a climate emergency, step up our efforts to hold the Federal Government to account. “With 96 per cent of NSW still drought affected, our farmers and rural communities are being decimated by drought, suffering from water shortages and extended bush fire seasons, witnessing unprecedented fish kills and the death of once mighty river systems.”

The Lord Mayor, outlining the City of Sydney’s action on climate change since 2008, committed to accelerate work in the development of its strategic plan till 2050.

“We set a goal to reduce our emissions by 70 per cent by 2030, and — following the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 — we set a more ambitious goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050”, she said.

“We became Australia’s first carbon neutral council in 2007, and as of June 2017, we’d reduced emissions in our own operations by 25 per cent. By 2020, we will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy, allowing us to meet our 2030 target by 2024 — six years early.”

According to the International Climate Emergency Forum, over 600 jurisdictions in 13 countries have now declared a climate emergency. The Climate Emergency Declaration campaign in Australia is supported by over 50 climate action groups, including the International Climate Emergency Forum, Extinction Rebellion, and Greenpeace Australia.

The Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Repeal Bill 2019 was the first bill introduced by Mark Latham into the new State Parliament on May 7.

It reads: ‘a bill for an Act to repeal the Uranium Mining and Nuclear Facilities (Prohibitions) Act 1986 and make consequential amendments to other legislation’.

In 2012, the then-O’Farrell government (Liberal/National) passed the Mining Legislation Amendment (Uranium Exploration Bill) 2012 to allow exploration for uranium in NSW. At the time, the Liberal-Nationals claimed that it would only allow exploration and not the creation of an industry.

Secord and Saffin say that Mark Latham’s bill follows a push last year by Nationals leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro, to establish a nuclear power industry in NSW.

They also say that Mr Barilaro also completed a taxpayer-funded visit to the United States where he was drumming up interest in US investors to build nuclear reactors in NSW. At the time, 18 sites were identified as possible sites for nuclear power plants in NSW– including a 250km stretch of coast from Port Macquarie to north of Grafton.

Fight against nuclear power

Mr Secord, who is Shadow Minister for the North Coast and Upper House deputy Opposition leader and Ms Saffin, who is the Country Labor MP for Lismore said they would fight the bill.

‘This is the next step in the development of a nuclear power industry in NSW,’ said Mr Secord said. ‘It is no coincidence that the first piece of legislation to come from the new parliamentarians was a bill to set up a nuclear power industry.

‘The Berejiklian Government has always supported a nuclear power industry.’

Ms Saffin said that the North Coast community is clear and has spoken. ‘They do not want to see nuclear reactors in NSW. We fought them on CSG and unconventional gas and we will fight them on nuclear power.

‘North Coast primary producers pride themselves on the quality of their goods and their clean and green reputation,’ she said. ‘The National Party Leader’s obsession with building nuclear reactors would jeopardise this hard fought for advantage for local producers on the North Coast.’

Saffin says nuclear reactors would tarnish NSW’s clean and green image, and threaten the reputation and emerging markets of many north coast primary industries.

‘Nuclear power is a distraction from real long term energy solutions that provide the cheapest and most sustainable forms of electricity for the community and business – which is renewable energy,’ she said.

‘The NSW Coalition Government has always harboured dreams of nuclear power plants in NSW, having first proposed a site for Jervis Bay on the South Coast in the 1960s’.

Echo Net Daily, March 2019, Radioactive soil will be removed from Byron Bay Public School after testing showed higher-than-normal levels during upgrade works.

According to a statement from the education department, preliminary testing of soil during early construction works for the upgrade to the school has identified ‘quantities of naturally occurring radioactive material’.

‘The department has engaged an environmental consultant to assist with the management of remediation works in consultation with the school principal, NSW Health, NSW Environmental Protection Agency and Byron Shire Council,’ the statement says.

‘The health, safety and well-being of students, staff and the school’s neighbours are the highest priority for the department.’

Works are currently being planned to remove soil from the school work site with dates and times still to be advised.

“Senator LUDLAM: “That is all right—I have a couple of others I want to run through, and the hour is late. Could you please advise on the cost, the extent of the process and the status of works to recontainerise and secure low-level radioactive waste at the Woomera site? While we are on the subject of how safe this stuff is, how much are we having to spend on recontaining the decaying packaging of the radioactive waste up at Woomera? Is that still kind of your bailiwick, or … ?”

Mr B Wilson : “Not technically; it is actually CSIRO’s waste, so they own that waste and they are responsible for managing it.””

Soooo…..according to documentation in December 1989 the CSIRO COMMISSIONED the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to remove radioactively contaminated materials from the CSIRO’s Fishermans Bend site in Melbourne. This waste was THEN COMPLETELY ON SITE at ANSTO Lucas Heights in 1990. (Remember that date)

HOWEVER IN THE END IT REMAINED ON SITE at Lucas Heights NSW for FOUR YEARS!

It was only as the result of the Sutherland Shire Council against ANSTO in the New South Wales Land and Environment Court 1991 that the CSIRO waste from Fishermans Bend VICTORIA, and the St Mary’s Waste from the Defence Department was moved to Commonwealth Defence Land in Woomera in South Australia, as ANSTO, under that Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW), could not accept nuclear waste from OTHER entities.

This court case was in reaction to ANSTO entering into a contract with Australian Defence Industries (ADI) to condition and store radioactive waste from the ADI site at St Marys NSW, 1991. (Remember this date too – not 1990 nor 1989 -when CSIRO waste from Fishermans Bend was on ANSTO Lucas Heights land, nor 1989 when it was contracted!)

Of course after this ruling, ANSTO hurriedly amended the ANSTO Act so this could never happen again!

So….according to Bruce Wilson, CSIRO own the Fishermans Bend waste, and then that means that the Department of Defence in NSW own the St Mary’s waste!

And since the siting of the waste in Woomera was only ever agreed to be TEMPORARY AS IN SPECIFICALLY ” A FEW YEARS” – NOW TWENTY FOUR YEARS AND COUNTING…..then Victoria and NSW are quite welcome to take it back any time NOW!!

“In addition, based on interviews with ANSTO Health staff working in high hazard areas, the majority of staff did not understand the various health effects of radiation exposures, this being appropriate to individual duties with respect to the hazardous areas in which they work. This is believed by the reviewers to put at risk the ability to verify all persons
performing high risk activities are fully competent to do so. More importantly, this puts the individual at risk.”
– (excerpt from page 7) “INDEPENDENT SAFETY REVIEW OF THE ANSTO HEALTH APPROACH TO OCCUPATIONAL RADIATION SAFETY AND OPERATIONAL PROCEDURES”
OCTOBER 2018

On 5 October 2018, following a direction from ARPANSA’s CEO Dr Carl-Magnus Larsson, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) provided ARPANSA with a report produced by an independent expert review team outlining 85 recommendations to improve ANSTO’s occupational radiation safety processes and operational procedures.
Dr Larsson issued the direction to initiate an independent review on 29 June 2018 under section 41(1A) of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Act 1998 (the Act) following four separate events with safety implications at ANSTO Health in less than 10 months.

FEDERALSubmissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.

Nuclear facilities, including power stations and radioactive waste dumps, are now banned in Queensland.

Nuclear facilities banned under the Act include:

·nuclear reactors (whether used to generate electricity or not);

·uranium conversion and enrichment plants;

·nuclear fuel fabrication plants;

·spent fuel processing plants; and

·facilities used to store or dispose of material associated with the nuclear fuel cycle e.g. radioactive waste material.

Exemptions under the legislation include facilities for the storage or disposal of waste material resulting from research or medical purposes, and the operation of a nuclear-powered vessel.

1 FEDERALSubmissions about the proposed National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in Kimba or the Flinders Ranges. The Standing Committee on Environment and Energy are accepting submissions to the ‘Inquiry into the prerequisites for nuclear energy in Australia’ until 16 September 2019. Please write your own submission or use FOE’s online proforma.

Australia has long rejected nuclear power, and it is banned in Federal and State laws. The nuclear lobby is out to first repeal those laws, and then to get the Australian government to commit to buying probably large numbers of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMRs) . This could mean first importing plutonium and/or enriched uranium, as some reactor models, (thorium ones) require these to get the fission process started. That would, in effect, mean importing nuclear wastes.

There’s an all-too short period for people to send in Submissions to the 4 Parliamentary Inquiries now in progress.